Already Married
by Jonathan D. Allard
Summary: Clay wants to ask Justin to be his bestman, but it seams Justin knows something Clay dosn't or has simply forgotten.
1. Chapter 1

Justin and Clay was standing on the back porch looking at the outhouse, that had been there home years ago.

Justin sips his beer, Clay can't help but be neveurs. He has something he wants to ask Justin. Something important, but the words on his tongue just wont come out.

Clay looks back inside, seeing Hailey talking with his mom as she bounces his little nephew on her lap, Clay can't help but smile. His heart sors and the nerves in his stomach settels enough to ask something.

"What do you think of Hailey?" It might not be the question he wanted to ask, it was a start however.

"She's great man." Justin takes another sip "I'm glad you two found each other after what happened with Ani." Clay tenses. They never talk about that, it is one of those topics that is off limits.

"Me too." Clay agrees.

"How long is it you have been together?"

"Nearly 2 years." He takes a deep breath before he tries to control the conversation. It's weird that everytime they come back home he suddenly becomes that obvious, nerdy boy that can't string a sentence together to save his life.

"I know we have only been living together for about 8 months, but I really like her, Justin."

"What are you saying?" Justin sits down the beer and directs all of his attention on Clay. Blue eyes boring into him trying to read him, trying and succeeding. He smiles widely.

"What's going on Clay?" hopeful eyes, Justin have hopeful eyes, full of wonder and a childlike gleam that would always get them into trouble as teens.

"I really think she could be the one, Justin." Clay didn't understand Justin's sudden confusion and what looked to be disappointment.

Clay was hit with a sudden anger at Justin, why would his brother not be happy for him.

"I was gonna ask you to be my best man. But it's pretty clear that you don't approve that I want to ask her to marry me." Clay was about to turn and walk away from the man that has been his brother for years.

Justin grabs him before Clay gets the chance to walk away in anger.

"Clay." the way he says it with his puppy eyes and soft voice, Justin just says his name but Clay hears so much more in that one word. He waits for Justin to speak again, uses the silence to ask the question for him.

"It's not that I don't want you to be happy. But are you sure? I mean it's only been 2 years."

"I'm sure." And Clay is sure, he is more sure on Hailey then he had been on any other girl in his life. He could see the future together, how they would grow together have kids and truly become a family. She was the one.

"Okay." Justin let go of Clays arm. "as long as your sure." Justin expression was something of a mystery to Clay, which was odd because Clay new his brother. Knew him better than anyone else would think.

"What do you mean?" Clay asked Justin.

"It's not your life you are gonna change."

"I know." Clay was growing angry that his brother didn't just clap him on the shoulder and asked if he had already asked Hailey to marry him.

"I don't think you do."

"What are you saying?" Clay asked. The weils behind the blue eyes was turning, Justin was thinking. That much was obvious. It was hard to predict what conclusion he came to, but Clay saw he came to one.

"Spit it out Justin." Still a little angry.

"You truly don't remember?" Clay didn't understand him and he was growing tired of not getting to the point.

"Remember what?" Clay sighed

They were interrupted by small feet running up to them. The little girl calling.

"Daddy, Daddy mom is looking for you."

"Sweetheart I'm just talking with uncle, Clay. Go tell mommy I'll be right there."

"But daddy!" the girl wined.

"Go." he gave her a small and tender push in the back as he smiled to the small dark skinned girl. "I'll be right there." That was all it took for the tired girl to break out crying.

Justin picked her up and hushed her as he cradled her in his arms. It took a moment for the girl to fall down and fall asleep on her father's arm.

Clay still waited for an answer from Justin.

"It's not that I don't like or I think it's to early, look at me I have two kids already. But you can't marry her Clay."

"Why not?!" the words hostile.

Justin hefted the sleeping girl on one arm and went to go inside again.

"Because you're already married." that wasn't the responce Clay had expected at all. The door closing behind Justin sounded like a ear deafening crack to Clay.

"What the FUCK?!" When Clay came back to himself there were no one around. Who could he be married to?!


	2. Chapter 2

Hailey couldn't sleep, she turned again. The reason for not being able to sleep was snoring dead to the world, beside her.

She was so furious she considered smothering his stupid snoring face, just to get some peace to sleep. She was angry at Clay, angry at him for asking her to marry him. Furious at him for coming a few days after he given her his grandmothers ring, telling that they couldn't get married after all, because he was already married! Who the hell doesn't know they are married?!

Hailey gave up on sleep for the second night in a row, maybe some tea and brainless tv would lull her off to sleep, just give her a few hours of rest.

The doorbell rings as she is about to sit down on the couch. She sighs and takes a sip of the chamomile tea, sits the mug down on the coffee table before she goes to the front door. She picks up the baseball bat that sits in the hallway. They only have it for this reason, well they have two, but the other is under the bed. The baseball bats are the only protection they have. Hailey would have like it better to have a gun, but Clay had some sort of phobia for guns it seemed. And living in a questionable neighborhood and a reasonable small apartment they had to be able to defend themselves. They only lived here to avoid too much dead while getting their educations. Witch meant she was stuck with pounding the potential burglars with the metal rod.

She looked through the peephole. she saw a man in a black leather jacket, he looked to be around her own age. But it was hard to see beneath the bruises and split brow. He looked like something the cat had dragged in. She would have called the cops on the heavenly tattooed Latino guy if not for the girl standing beside him. She looked tired and scared. Hailey heart broke just a little for the fearful girl. The young Latina was the only reason Hailey unlocked the door with the chain on.

She might feel for the girl, but that was no reason to be stupid. This could very well be a ruse to get into their home. Getting a better view if the young man, helped her.

"Yes?" Hailey asked the guy, still suspicious and a little scared of his looks. He might look menacing, but the look in his eyes told her he wouldn't just hurt her and take their stuff. She had seen that desperate look in her father's eyes enough times to know that he wasn't a treat. Not immediately anyway. She saw the terror he held back. It was squeezed so tight and packed far enough away until there would be a safe place to fall apart.

"Clay? I need to speak to Clay." His voice was more desperate then Hailey thought it would be. But it matched his eyes, honest at least.

"He's asleep, can this wait to the morning?"

"If this could have waited, do you really think that I would be stopping by in the middy of the night?" He sounded irritated, but she saw through it.

"Listen I don't know who you are, I'm not letting you in." She was about to close the door as he sat his food in front of it. Making sure the door didn't close.

"Please Hailey, we got no were else to go." He gestured to the girl looking like she was about to cry now.

"Okay" she said, if he as much as tried anything she would just hit him over the head. The Latino guy pulled his foot away, so she could open the door. It was first when they were as already inside the hall, taking tire shoes and jackets of she realized that the guy knew her name.

"Who are you exactly?" she asked still holding on to the bat.

"Tony what are you doing here?" Hailey heard Clay ask from the end of the hall.

"Can we crash here?"

"Of course." it was as if Clay just now saw the bruises on his face, split lip and broken knuckles.

"What happened to your face?!"

"Can we talk later? I'm going to put Isabella to sleep."

"Of cause" Clay lead the battered young man and girl into the quest room slash office. Hailey is suddenly angry; she doesn't know why. But something she do know is that this person coming in the middle of the night means something to Clay. He doesn't just mean something, she realizes, he means a lot. So why hadn't she ever met this Tony guy before now? Or heard of him before, was Clay keeping secrets from her

She didn't like how relieved Tony looked to see Clay and how he looked at him in general. But what had her writhing internally was now easy Clay put a hand on his back. Not in the way she had seen him, and Justin do, or how her brothers would clap their friends encouraging. This was a soft hand placed between the shoulder blades, a guiding hand that keep gliding down to the lower of the spine.

She was shocked when she realized what that unconscious gesture meant. She didn't study Psychology for nothing.

She goes back to the couch and her tea and waits for her boyfriend to come find her stewing in her anger, shock and worst of all, the feeling of betrayal.

She doesn't wait long for Clay to come back, his face looked pained. Like everything has suddenly changed.

"What did he say?"

"Hugh! Clay didn't pay attention to her question.

"I just asked if he said anything about why he comes demanding to be let in the middle of the night, with no expiations to why."

"Tony wouldn't come like this if something wasn't wrong." Clay looks through the cupboards until he finds what he is looking for, something Hailey had never seen Clay drink in all the time they had been together with her. She didn't even know they had hot Chocolate. Hailey don't say anything, she just watches how Clay pours the hot water into the brown powder, he takes a sip from the mug before grimacing and adding more powder and a hit of instant coffee.

Clay never dos sweet coffee, he always says that he believes that coffee should be just that, strait up black and bitter. He takes another sip and his face tells everything; this isn't something he likes. Which is wired, why would he make a drink he doesn't like? That question is answered when Tony comes back out in the living room. Tony raises one eyebrow As Clay hands him the mug. It is clear as day that they have been close, because they communicate without words.

"Hot chocolate is the cure for all things shitty in life." To Hailey the words are just that, but it seems to mean something else to both Clay and Tony.

"Just what I needed." Tony sips it again.

"What happen to you, Tony?" Hailey is sure she sees it before Clay, the breakdown that is underway. The pent-up terror loosening it hold. It's clear in the way the Latinos hands shake.

"Caleb found out. He threw me out. I had to make sure my sister was taken care of. I had nothing else I could do. I had to make enough many to take care of us, mi familia." He broke out in a sub.

"What are you talking about?" Clay reached over and put a hand on his shoulder, most of the tension left Tony as he did. They must have been really close for that to be the reaction. She might not know Tony personally, but she knew his type. He didn't look us at Clay as he spoke, he avoided her boyfriend's eyes by keeping his eyes locked on his hands holding his mug. Classic sign of shame.

"Underground fighting Clay," Hailey looked to see Clays reaction, if that was something he knew, something he disapproved off or was surprised over? Hailey quickly figure out this night she knew much less of the man she lived with, then she thought.

"But why?" He had looked choked, but not outraged as he normally would when it came to violence.

"When everything settled down and Isabella finally came back. The mob suddenly wanted more money, I had to come up with cash quickly or they would stop helping my family, or worse come after me and my sister. I had nothing. They kept demanding payments and I need the money, so I did what I'm good at..."

"Fighting?"

"A Padilla never runs away, especially from a fight" Clay can't help but smile, and the way Tony smiles back says everything. Hailey looked to his hands, seeing the gold band on his finger and felt something in her stomach drop, she dared to hope her gut feeling wasn't true.


End file.
